Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.
Congratulations !!
Apollo 11 in Real Time
91–100 of 140 posts
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#92Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.
Apollo 11 was my formative experience, I was 5 years old and watched it live on TV in Australia as the images were received.
Apollo 11 (and space in general) is why I got into computing (I was never going to be an astronaut), this website is truly outstanding.
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're talking about one specific aspect though. Yes, the concept of an email is pretty familiar to anyone with experience with telegraphs. I'd argue the availability of information, and certainly information that isn't curated by a single source, is a pretty fundamental discontinuity.
> information that isn't curated by a single source is a pretty fundamental discontinuity. Even in Ben Franklin’s time his paper was only one of at least four in Philadelphia.
I was mostly thinking of the science fictional trope of all mankind's knowledge being in a centralized thing-- e.g. Encyclopedia Galactica. For both societal and technical reasons (especially golden age) SF was often oriented towards benevolent centralized governments.
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#94I was six years old during Apollo 11 and have just fragmentary memories of it. One is of my grandfather tearing up at the lunar landing and saying "when I grew up I used to carry flint and steel to start a fire" ... which would have been in the 1890s. If he grasped what he was seeing I think he'd be about as future shocked by the internet as exemplified by this link.
I was 14 years old that day and I remember sitting on our couch absolutely transfixed. The entire Apollo 11 mission remains one of the most significant event in my entire life. For those too young to have witnessed the moon landings, for a recreation of what it was like, I suggest finding a copy of HBO’s “From the Earth to the Moon”.
the new Apollo 11 documentary that just came out is also very good
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#95I'm just leaving this on in the background on the home theater PC, and switching back to it from the Roku to check in on things. Truly amazing.
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> information that isn't curated by a single source is a pretty fundamental discontinuity. Even in Ben Franklin’s time his paper was only one of at least four in Philadelphia.
I was mostly thinking of the science fictional trope of all mankind's knowledge being in a centralized thing-- e.g. Encyclopedia Galactica. For both societal and technical reasons (especially golden age) SF was often oriented towards benevolent centralized governments.
Sure, they might not have predicted the extent to which knowledge could be "small pieces, loosely joined", but I'm not sure that in every case they are were creating centralized structures from first principles--generally there is one new concept they are exploring/pushing, and everything else is just rebranded things from their everyday life. The Encyclopedia Galactica is nothing more or less than "The Britanica.... IN SPACE!!!!" with no more or less authority implied.
That being said, the general concept of knowledge in earlier sci-fi does seem curiously impoverished--everything worth knowing often can be held within the brain single computer/robot/polymath, or quickly established by proceeding axiomatically from a few observations.
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#97Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.
I was convinced this was an official NASA exhibit made for the 50-year anniversary. Fantastic work and much appreciated. My dad will be psyched; he was 17 at the time of the launches, and this fits in great in the recent tradition of "slow entertainment" that happens in real time over multiple days :)
Thanks very much. I'm a NASA contractor now, so it it's partially a NASA project from that perspective. Can you post some examples of "slow entertainment"? I like that this website might be fitting a genre I didn't know existed.
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#98Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.
What exactly is the "sync to today's clock" thing doing - the same day of the month and time of day but in July 1969?
Yes. It's a way to drop in on today's time of day within the mission. During the actual anniversary in July, it will drop you in 50 years earlier to-the-second.
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#99Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.
Thank you. This is really incredible work. Is the source code available anywhere? I trust you’ll keep this online for the foreseeable future but this should be preserved and redundantly available in case anything happens.
Yes and no. You can find the Apollo17.org source code that this site has extended, here https://github.com/bfeist/Apollo17. That said, the media elements and photography and some of the other material isn't on github (too big).
Re: Apollo 11 in Real Time
#100Thanks for the share. I'm the author of the site and am happy to answer any questions.
This is tremendous. Is this any relation to wechoosethemoon.org from a few years back (2009)? The site is still there but needs flash, there's a YouTube video of the site here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlFbX3SHbOk
No relation. That was a paid campaign by the JFK Library done by Martin Agency. The good old days of Flash :)